you know as we enter it we are winner readers we are in we're going or we're we're gay sometimes these things happen you heard it from every mainstream news network in america we're gay is taking over with an economic crisis and we've wars on the way that's worth the jump it's making headlines. meanwhile isn't a financial crisis for congressman weiner wants us to be talking about anyway so as democrats and republicans battle it out the winner about the bait remains unclear battles within the parties themselves play out with. a verdict is handed down in

the case of seven nato soldiers charged with war crimes it is once again a case where those behind what some are calling a massacre are but also home so why is this the norm all so many others have to pay . it's thursday june second i'm christine for in washington d.c. and you are watching our t.v. well it looks like we've reached that time of year again summertime where the news is simply slow it's not like the u.s. is suffering from an economic downturn seen since the great depression or even embroiled in the last three wars i can't be the case because if you turn on the mainstream media networks all you see is that an unimpressive crotch shot of a congressman is apparently the most important news in the world right now. it is

so stressful thank god i found this stress wiener because this is simply making me crazy no matter what button i push on my remote control the up channel or the down channel new york congressman anthony weiner has invaded my life. but no matter where you turn he and his. joke are the top story democratic congressman anthony weiner has just finished speaking with n.b.c.'s luke russert about that lewd photograph that was posted from his twitter account and you would know with this is your underpants for many reporters and host calling for reinforcements calling for someone to be held responsible if biggest question here is if his account was attacked was hacked why is he not reported to law enforcement leaders case is dumb but if he was half fact serious so the f.b.i. should be involved the network sent in their big guns to get to the bottom of it is

there a picture out there of you in your. world the words that you are worried about fox news took credit for originating this groundbreaking story what may surprise you most about the scandal is that it may have all originated right here on hannity according to m s n b c s lawrence o'donnell there's a perfectly good reason congressman weiner is keeping things they are the longer you look at the picture especially the pixellated version the more you begin to understand why congressman weiner might not want to deny the fact there's a picture of him in fact the longer i look at it the more i don't want to deny that it might be a picture of me jealousy aside this is a hard hitting investigation no one is giving up on because you haven't answered a question about whether the photo is you or not you realize that now everybody thinks the photo is you and so where there's smoke there's fire there must be a real scandal here you must've been doing something creepy here well let me ask

you whether or not you want to answer that question and then let me ask what the answer to it is when you're named wiener it kind of goes with the territory. it goes with the territory and you know we hear it r t we're curious about this how americans really feel because this story deserves the hype that's been getting our two producer lindsey garfield hit the streets of the nation's capital to find some answers. the past few days the news networks have been covering what's going on with this wiener gate scandal but to the mainstream networks care more about this than the people do you find out i honestly don't really care much about it it seems like more of a distraction than anything. i think it's important. and well it's been in newspapers and you know cable networks for about four days now so i'm just wondering is it important do you want to get to the bottom of it. i think the

summer after here. and. you know whatever doesn't make a difference because refusal to deny that it's a picture of i think it's probably will keep the story alive. isn't important to you to know whether or not he was the one who sent it not really but i think there are far more pressing things in this world that could get a little bit more coverage like what tornadoes. continued crisis in the middle east our country's fiscal situation i think it's pretty straightforward like twitter hackings all the time i just think it's not really a big deal i think it's in the news. it's personal business. so i don't i'm not interested in it really do you think that there are any other stories in the news that people should be focused on or do you think this is a big important story i think the bigger thing in the world in general then a congressman clutch on to it. so perhaps congressman weiner is thanking his lucky

stars today happy that mitt romney decided to announce that he's officially running for president took up some time at least some space in the endless cycle of cable news but still all they want stories of when are. you know. in the headlines earlier as opposed to christopher tabor's journalism professor at georgetown university and here's part of what he had to say. we do have an economic crisis here in europe we have food an energy crisis is excess are a wars that's not important i mean we have our eye is that not important because that stuff is tough stuff it's tough to explain you even see meltdowns within the democrats or republicans you know domestically over the economy and it's things aren't fitting into neat little boxes anymore so we strive to look at stuff like this first was arnold now this. and before that charlie sheen relishing i mean what

do you tell your students about a stencil who now is may one day be making decisions as executive producer right on what to put on the news well i mean what's ironic is that to suppose a target of this crotch shot has come forward and issued a statement she's a journalism student as a matter of fact in washington not washington d.c. thank god washington state let's let them share some of the economy some time and he said look i never even saw this and that and now my name is being bandied about as the harlot of twitter and you know his his his isn't his mistress and you know maybe we have a love child so that shows you how it's it's how it's exploded and what's happened is that here's here's where it becomes interesting it is a distraction from some serious things that are going on that we should be covering but the interesting thing is when you look at the carnival itself how it's playing out because really on one side you have arguably somebody who was arrogant at best an idiot at most two who may have taken

a picture of his of his his pecker as we spent my grandfather used to say and now at the same time you have a political narrative that's being generated through through fox through right wing news sites and blogs you know that has a vested interest in distracting in a direct sense from the real news out there i mean there was a news that came out today with john mccain one of his campaign chairman said that the republican field in two thousand and twelve is a noisy. nonsense so how do you distract from that and from the the problems up on the hill the republicans are having with their own members with the debt with a juicy story and i was at the root of it andrew breitbart and what is a small scandal or a non traverse he becomes a big one and you see waiters using that i got i think of another from the congressman's response is again i mean yes in this day and age not responding is basically the admission of guilt is that right is that fair you know but it you

know if he were to come forward and say yes maybe i did take that picture but i don't know i mean that's the narrative now i don't know how it got on twitter and with the support of the told to victimise here i'm using words that somebody else can retreat that i said it on our t.v. you know the word victim when she comes from she's come forward and said i never saw this and you all are crazy and i don't think this came from the congressman that you know those playoffs on not each other and it became it becomes a bigger mystery it's more you know fascinating the casey anthony trial in florida you know i mean another thing that the one thing atherton we all over when it really doesn't related to anyone's life and it's a little bit disgusting if you get it look at it i mean what about this issue that you were saying these other stories they're just not that simple these complex story like war and what's going on right now in yemen and syria and you know where gadhafi been lately you know what about staying on top of these stories which arguably do have kind of

a bigger impact on everyone's life right well if it's first of all i mean for certain news outlets that have a political narrative that they want to get forward and i'm talking everything from from blogs the news sites to say fox news they have a vested interest in the keeping the story like this alive because it does distract from things that maybe they don't feel are very helpful to their narrative on the other hand you have some outlets who are basically playing off of that you don't want to seem. unfair they also you know they want to present something that fills a twenty four hour cycle that will get ratings that will get you know eyes on their news sites you know when they're going pro crisscrossing platforms from their from their new sites to their t.v. stations i mean they want their ratings and we'd like that people like that despite what you hear on the street because there is a block of people whether it's for political reasons because they hate him because he's a liberal down democrat in a loud mouth or they just like a good scandal who will keep on that but yemen or greece you know about that

default you know that stuff is too complicated it does it's going to affect their lives directly but they don't that but this stuff is more of a of junk food but the stuff that you really can't handle and yes that's right. in a lot of ways. that's going to affect them personally that stuff is going to affect them personally even yemen grease the dollar you know chinese trade deficit this stuff doesn't affect them at all but they have to fixate on it because it's simple it's the sivia sixteen gauge and now as christine rous professor at georgetown university. moving on now to the topic of discussion common congressman weiner says he wanted to talk about all along the debate over the debt ceiling it's one that could change course after a stern warning out today by moody's investor moody's saying today that if there is no progress on increasing the standard toward debt limit in the coming weeks it expects to place the u.s.

government's rating under a new review for possible downgrade due to the very small but rising risk of a short default this is a big big deal or at least a quick be joining me now for more from our new york studio is erica payne she's the founder of the end of project america i want to start with this warning by moody's i know it was just about a month and a half ago that we heard standard and poor's give a similar warning just sort of maybe thinking about downgrading their outlook for the u.s. but not nearly as serious as this is unexpected do you think that this will change the course of the debate i don't know that will change you know republicans have stepped forward and said i think very irresponsibly that they are absolutely refusing to put any sort of revenue solution on the table and so we're reaching an impasse but it seems to me you know it's hard to negotiate with a crazy person and i think we're seeing a lot of that sort of tea party craziness that we saw during the election you know

they're really pushing them hard on the republican leaders are i think it's very doubtful that you know the grownups in the republican party are going to step forward and say enough already what do you mean the tea party craziness just clarify a little bit do you mean the fact well you know these people in the community are saying absolutely not in terms of raising the debt rightly. right you know but i think that they actually fundamentally don't understand this and it's a little bit of of a messaging problem because when you hear. people don't want to raise the debt ceiling you think well that makes sense you know we have a lot of debt we don't need any more debt but that's not really the issue the issue in front of us is whether or not we're going to pay the debts that we've already incurred so the real question is when you've raised the debt ceiling what you're saying is i am going to meet those obligations that i have and i think that the problem with this debate right now is that the american people are hearing this you know raise the debt ceiling in their concern and so it's the tea party's political

aspirations so they are thinking well we'll do the irresponsible thing and you know deep. interesting and i know something that you and the agenda project talk about all the time is kind of bringing normal americans back into the center of these big breaks in this country i'm wondering where should normal americans stand and what should they know about the debt ceiling debate. well here's what they should understand they should understand that they just look at it like your credit card ok so if you have a twenty five thousand hour limit on your credit card and a tree falls on your house then you know you probably want to get the tree off your house and if you're actually limit your credit card say it's twenty five thousand if the credit card company says you know we can raise your debt limit a little bit let's raise it to are three thousand hours that we can pay for the treat company to come get the tree out of our house vote what is the exact same things just to play devil's i was so raising the debt ceiling for the united states government raising the debt ceiling is the equivalent of saying it's ok to take on

a little bit more debt so we can pay the obligations that we've already incurred and so that we can fix some of the problems that we have in front of us obviously we've got a long term debt problem just to play devil's advocate to broaden this discussion a little bit what if and we use this example that you're using with the tree what if the people increasing their credit card amount that they're allowed to spend they continue to buy new trees but will then continually own their houses. ok we might have taken the tree analogy a little bit too far i think the question is are you going to pay to get the tree off your house but i mean that's the question front of us we had the biggest down economic downturn since the great depression two years ago it's going to take a little bit of work to get out of that and so that's that's the tree that fell on the house and right now we've got you know some guys up there trying to get the tree down the question is are we spending money on things that we don't need to

spend money on and that and the answer to that is not really you know there are some things that can be cut but at the moment we would hurt our ability to get the tree off of the house if we don't continue to spend money all right let's leave the tree behind and again certainly moody's warning are very very interesting but i want to look sort of globally now the u.s. certainly not the only country with of course you know we've but we've seen countries like portugal and greece and italy all the pieces over debt and then you have a country like singapore or someone standing strong other countries doing the same i guess i just want to get your take what you're hearing in terms of which direction the u.s. will go which which direction will go in terms of will we alternately solve this problem is that which are absolutely will we solve this problem or will we let it make us stronger. you know i think that that is a question that is really up to the american people and right now as busy as people

are a lot of people either looking for work or working two jobs to make ends meet we've got to take a second out of our busy lives and focus on washington because these leaders in washington who incidentally are the people who got us into this problem ten years ago when they put through the bush tax cut and then declared two wars that they didn't pay for it we've got to turn to them and say you work for us and you need to take care of this problem and you need to do it by doing the responsible thing at the moment raising the debt ceiling and then addressing the long term issue in a sensible way that's not going to hurt our recovery and i have to get american people weigh in on this debate will fix it and if they don't we probably won't erica you were sort of right on the money when you said that in many ways this is a debate that's becoming very political i know today we heard former massachusetts governor mitt romney announce his candidacy for president and also really president obama and he had obama for the way he's handled the economy i want to get from you has president obama failed when it comes to the economy. i think that washington

has largely failed i think that president obama has done about as well as he could do given the political dynamics of the country what's really happening here is that we still have a lot of ideas entrenched in our government about how to actually structure an economy says that it works for the american people and those ideas are really hard to overcome and the power of lobbying in washington is very hard to overcome i think obama could have done better than he's done but i think he did so much better than any republican or conservative would have done in the same situation because put it this way they are more paid off by the banks in the oil companies than are the democrats so i think obama did a as good a job as he probably thought he could i think he could have done a little better but the alternative of having you know it's the party candidate or a staunch republican and there who have proven their inability to deal with

economic matters that would have been a total disaster and finally are just one final question i want to get your take on . this sort of the deadline for this is sort of august first the day before august second which is the day that everything's supposed to. go to hell if we don't fix this problem but it seems like at least from what we're hearing here in washington this might get solved by the end of this month is this just that you know these congressmen want to go on vacation to get this done why do you think that there might be this rush to get this done. well i mean i think that what you could potentially start to see with moody's if you remember during the election of obama a lot of wall street came forward yet climbed on the bandwagon and really got behind this guy is he started to criticize wall street they started leaving on mass in going to the republicans and there's a lot of people i know from our street downing huge amounts of money to the republicans as soon as president obama said you know you guys need to cool it

a little bit and so now those wall street people perhaps with this new g.'s rating the wall street people who are now so gung ho for the conservatives because they don't want to answer regulation they'll realize we've given you know the crazy people keys to the asylum and so with wall street starts to pull back their money it was st it was now funding the republican party starts to say we're not going to let you do irresponsible thing that you are considering doing as soon as that money starts to pour back you'll see republicans start to act a little bit more rationally and deciding what to do here and so that moody's rating may help move that along and which case there would be a pastor picks than we anticipated before and as always we will be keeping an eye on that right here in washington d.c. erica payne founder of the agenda project thanks so much switching gears now to a day that was supposed to be a joyous one it was a wedding celebration instead it was a day marked by blood my horror and by that of at least six people back in august

of two thousand and seven now perhaps because it happened in afghanistan or perhaps because those responsible for the deaths were nato troops but a judge and a military court has now found there was simply not enough evidence to convict them artes don't know bushell has the story. civilians killed and nato soldiers go free the same old story in afghanistan the threats and for a moment to be different polish soldiers put on trial for deaths including a pregnant woman and a child. on the sixteenth of august two thousand and seven water shells that were fired by polish troops in the city afghan village of not as a result six people were killed three were severely wounded but the soldiers were cleared of all charges one of the accused told r.t. it's all been a big mistake we didn't see people. we were accidents in the south

sudan was because of our. was damage saw something very dark and it was also a problem we've got a grenade malfunctioned and missed its taliban target by five hundred meters claims a shit skin the prosecutors alleged it was revenge for roadside bomb which killed another polish soldier earlier in the day experts say it's unlikely anything could go so catastrophic leigh wrong this is not logical operators of them or could not make such a serious error of such a large distance the question is did they decide to fire themselves or did they receive his command from above but there is no doubt they were shooting at the village not the nearby hills the defendants all due to commanders of the attack and the should be the one standing trial one to exclude from those people should be

accused maybe maybe. it's activists while the conflict continues civilian deaths from nato bombing or inevitable will only rise and the longer the war. goes on with their war situation is so the answer is i think quite simple to withdraw troops from afghanistan. beginning of the process of the musician of this country because the troops western troops doesn't bring some of his asian to afghanistan just the opposite as the death toll goes up on both sides support for need to his mission plummets a majority in europe say opinion polls now think the conflicts going in the wrong direction. this was already unpopular in the e.u. there's the hundred billion euro of course services are being called. the sort of old boys coming back in coffins is even worse leaving the death of civilians on the holiest for the week of the case sustain afghanistan even the afghan president's

turning against nato after the latest fourteen civilians were killed how did it cause lloyd delivered his strongest words yet giving a point of warning and threatening war if you tappan zee again. this is a story that of course many of you have probably heard very little about but it's one that we wanted to bring to light for several different reasons and joining more of talk about it is longer hours i want act and you know let's talk about this case first in particular this happened back in two thousand and seven and the seven soldiers involved were nato troops are from poland they faced twelve to twenty five years behind bars and if convicted and the judge says you know there simply wasn't enough evidence in this case to convict them of course an appeal could still happen but what do you think about this it seems to me at least that there's a little bit of a trend of you know either nato or u.s. soldiers being charged with war crimes getting off. well you know i think this is roughly what a controversial nato case is because it's the first time

a polish border you know been involved in a case like this i think that this is definitely going to star is going to come far more controversial because there's a lack of accountability here and afghans will be against you know resents the they're going to begin resenting the american presence for more nato troops it's also going to further strain ties between you know because in cars with the international community i mean that's so interesting because you know for a lot of people might not find it surprising that you know regular afghan civilians civilians don't love the idea of having american and nato troops in afghanistan however president karzai is someone who sort of works with the u.s. a lot and to hear him calling out to stop these bombings on the houses but it doesn't seem exactly like the u.s. is going to listen to talk about this talk about president karzai and his role as you know the first democratically elected president of afghanistan how much power as hers i really have well carnes i this is probably one of the most you know i

don't i haven't ever seen you know cars i've actually. he's never come you know spoke out this way it's always been ask me to obviously you know there's a lot of afghans that was that him as well i mean you see these protests all these protests that you know this is death to america death to cars i so you know it might be because he's trying to gain some more support from the you know the in community. but there's also obviously a real issue here afghans are dying civilian casualties are not. there they're all out as a result of these aerial bombings and nato forces and because of there's this lack of accountability it's only causing further strains i mean you have general petraeus saying you know we condemn this we're sorry we apologize but it's obviously not you know it's not decreasing. the number of civilian casualties and i think president karzai is right to make you know let's make these calls there are

however several people in afghanistan and i think you sort of mentioned that just think that karzai is saying this so he can sort of get back in positive light with afghan people whereas he's going to continue to work with the u.s. talk about this is there a double relationship with cars i and trying to win support of his people and trying to work with us well i mean recently karzai relationship with the obama administration is that you know i haven't been going on as well as it used to be he's becoming far more you know we're all this will be you obviously before the further this. as long as relationships forward the u.s. they've shown and he represents the object people it is his responsibility to speak for the outing people and i feel like he's beginning to do that now whether they're genuine intentions that's you know we don't know but i mean they are. his calls are warranted i mean it's it's this we're not we can't continue this type of

military strategy to maybe needs to be saying i want to switch gears a little bit and talk a little bit about the future of afghanistan and just get your take i mean this is something you certainly know more about tonight than the average american in terms of what afghanistan looks like in five ten years from now i know that you know there was a time when you know after the soviet union got out of afghanistan a lot of the people there in afghanistan became educated by the soviet you know and they came back and they brought their education and they brought what they learned and they in some ways molded the direction of afghanistan with this new sort of middle to upper elite class what happens now i mean who will be the new elite class in afghanistan once the u.s. sort of draw down troops well you know recently nato secretary general rest then he said that he's urging the u.s. to continue you know. to not continue this significant pull our troops in that we need to get maintain this broad counter insurgency strategy and i feel that as long

as they maintain this presence it's only going to cause further you know it's going to cause for the problem for the average community needs to begin withdrawing slowly but you know and as they do we need to begin we need to begin having far more stronger nation building efforts you know there's all these n.g.o.s that actually do so much work in afghanistan i'm working with one called the afghan education for a better tomorrow they act these are non-paid volunteers that you know go out of their way to build schools and you know clinics and yet there's far too little attention to them they don't have any resources so i feel like if we if we give them farm a little bit more resources we give them a little bit more about attention we can allow that it's going to be the way to be in mobilizing the people and brings them you know. the lazy economy. i have a lot of friends right now that are going to.